356. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories on college access and success via @rottenbornj ▸ http://paper.li/rottenbornj

2. Tips on Finding and Securing Scholarships, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/vLFbCd - "His principal tip was volume. “The trick to winning is to apply to lots of scholarships,” he said. All students – including the “very lucky and very skilled” – will get far more rejections than they will get wins, he said."

3. Your Common Application Essay, Uncut - The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/vmfPUd - ". . . The Common Application now asks that essays be between 250 and 500 words long. That upper limit was reimposed — after four years without one — amid feedback from admissions officers that essays had grown too long. But unlike other parts of the online application, which may cut off students midword when they exceed character limits, the essays are sent to colleges in full, and aren’t even labeled with word counts. Many seniors are pondering: to cut or not to cut?"

4. Pentagon Pledges Not to Change Tuition Reimbursement Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/t1ikrK via AddThis - "The Pentagon on Friday pledged not to change tuition reimbursement policies for active duty military at this time. Cuts in benefits have been expected (and the Marine Corps indicated earlier in the month that it was ready to make cuts), causing concern to many active duty military members who are enrolled in various programs."

5. Schooled in Sports: NCAA Raises Minimum GPA for Incoming Student-Athletes, by Bryan Toporek - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/schooled_in_sports/2011/10/ncaa_raises_minimum_gpa_for_incoming_student-athletes.html via @educationweek - "Starting in August 2015, high school student-athletes who hope to play sports in college will be held to a higher academic standard. While freshmen only need a 2.0 GPA to be eligible for competition now, the new rules require student-athletes to have a 2.3 GPA to have immediate access to competition.
If a student-athlete meets the current 2.0 GPA requirement but falls short of the 2.3 GPA required for competition, the NCAA approved a proposal that will allow him/her to still remain on his/her athletic scholarship. The NCAA is calling this an "academic redshirt" year."

6. More Students Migrate Away From Home, by Eric Hoover and Josh Keller -http://chronicle.com/article/The-Cross-Country-Recruitment/129577/ - "Public universities across the country are engaged in an all-out war for out-of-state students. Deep cuts in support are driving the search for revenue, and in many states, a stagnating pool of local applications has pushed colleges to recruit broadly. The winners, like Arizona State, bring in higher out-of-state tuition and get to skim from a larger pool of prospective students. . . . Randy Hodgins, the former chief lobbyist for the University of Washington, said he once told a joke to his counterpart at the University of California that has more than a grain of truth. "The answer to both of our budget problems is, I take your kids and you take mine, and then they're both nonresidents," Mr. Hodgins said."

7. Where Does Your Freshman Class Come From?http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Freshman-Class/129547#id=204796 - "Ohio State University was the 1st most popular in-state university for Ohio freshmen in 2010."

8. Bottom of the Heap - The New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/10/29/opinion/29blow-ch.html?ref=opinion "Selected measures from the report "Social Justice in the OECD--How Do the Member States Compare?" Includes some categories of index ratings and some raw data."

9. Want to earn more money? Study STEM. by Daniel de Vise - College, Inc. - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/want-to-earn-more-money-study-stem/2011/10/28/gIQALikjPM_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via Washingtonpost.com - "Math-science majors can earn more than humanities majors even with a lesser degree. Carnevale believes the economy has shifted over the past 30 years to reward academic fields over educational attainment. In other words: It doesn’t matter how long you have studied; it matters what you study. . . . 63 percent of STEM workers with associate’s degrees earn more than non-STEM workers with bachelor’s degrees."

10. Know Before You Owe: Student Loans - http://www.consumerfinance.gov/students/knowbeforeyouowe/

355. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. NCAA enacts broad academic, scholarship reforms, by Andy Gardiner – http://usat.ly/uy14V7 via @USATODAY - "Athletes will be eligible for up to $2,000 annually to cover incidental expenses above their basic scholarship for room, board, books and tuition. . . . Beginning with the 2012-13 school year, teams will have to post a minimum Academic Progress Rate (APR) to be eligible for bowl games, NCAA tournaments and other NCAA championships. The cutoff will start at a score of 900 (on a scale of 1000) and rise over three years to 930, which the NCAA projects to be a 50% graduation rate."

2. Ron Paul: The truth about my student loan plan – http://usat.ly/sT8hc3 via @USATODAY"The accumulated total student loan debt in this country is over $1 trillion. Think about that for a moment. Our entire national deficit for this year is $1.5 trillion, and the cost of college education alone is two-thirds of our country's entire budget shortfall. This is staggering."

3. 'The Ideal High School Graduate,' by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/u7KJZq - "Mr. Fitzsimmons called successful applicants to Harvard “good all-arounders – academically, extracurricularly and personally,” and he stressed the importance of demonstrating humanity and three-dimensionality in one’s college application. “I want to know, what is it this person does beside chew gum and produce good grades or scores?”

4. NCAA board approves athletic eligibility rules for D-I athletes, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vtRL36 via @AddThis - "Under new rules beginning in August 2016, to be eligible for competition incoming freshmen must have a 2.3 grade point average in a set of high school core courses, up from 2.0, and the appropriate standardized test score on the NCAA’s sliding scale, which has been adjusted slightly to account for the new GPA minimum. However, under a new “academic redshirt year” model, students whose GPA falls between the old and new minimums will still be eligible to receive athletic scholarships and practice with the team in their first term of enrollment, and can practice in the next term as well as long as they pass nine semester or eight credit hours."

5. High Schools, Colleges Push Financial Literacy, by Caralee J. Adams - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/28/10finance.h31.html via @educationweek - “This budget worksheet slows you down a bit and makes you realize, ‘Hey, I have to pay this money back,’ ” said the 26-year-old, who says it took just 15 minutes to meet the college’s new financial-aid requirement. Despite qualifying for Pell Grants and veterans’ benefits, Mr. Chandler estimates he will have accumulated $45,000 in debt by the time he finishes his education, including a master’s degree."

6. Chicago to Judge High Schools by College-Readiness Metric, by Catherine Gewertz - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2011/10/chicago_to_judge_highn_schools.html via @educationweek - "A Power Point presentation given at the board of education's meeting yesterday makes the case for tightening the screws on high schools, noting that fewer than six in 10 students graduate, and that students' average ACT score is 17, short of the ACT's "college readiness" benchmark of 21. Only 8 percent of 11th graders are testing "college ready" in all subjects on the Prairie State Achievement Exam, which includes the ACT."

7. Should College Grads Get a Break on Their Loans? - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201...

‎"Will the Obama plan make a difference? Will it help prevent defaults or will it lead today's students to borrow more, if they view their debts as potentially negotiable and if they believe the government is assuming more of the risk? What should government do about student debt and the college loan industry?"

8. Obama's student Debt Plan Is a Good First Step, by Sandy Baum - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/tHdLme - "The strength of the anti-student-loan movement and the number of students defaulting on their student loans suggest a serious lack of awareness of the repayment protections already in place. Unemployed students don’t have to make payments. But that doesn’t help people who don’t know they have this option. And stories of people unable to wade through the bureaucratic barriers to entering the Income Based Repayment plan abound."

9. Subsidizing the College Bubble, by Richard Vedder, Ohio U. - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/s6Dtij - "Our system of federal student financial assistance is broken --and very costly. It has done little to help low-income people go to college -- a smaller percentage of college graduates come from the bottom quartile of the income distribution than in 1970, before these programs were large -- and probably has contributed to the explosion of college tuition and fees."

10. Obama's Inadequate Response on Student Debt, by Anya Kamenetz - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/sj8Ebd - "But these numbers clearly show that the relief offered by income-based repayment is inadequate to the scope of the problem. It doesn’t apply to parental PLUS loans. It doesn’t apply to private, unsubsidized student loans, which bear higher interest rates, have been growing at 25 percent a year (compared with federal loans at 8 percent a year) and are on track to match the volume of federal student loans by 2025. It doesn’t help defaulted borrowers, who face lifelong nightmares of snowballing interest rates and fees with little to no possibility of relief even through bankruptcy."

11. The Worst Lesson We Could Teach, by Neal P. McCluskey - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/v8W5YZ - "What the administration is proposing isn’t all that grand: If you have debt through both the federal direct, and now-defunct guaranteed, loan programs you’ll be able to consolidate your loans and get a modest interest rate reduction. And if you don’t earn much, your maximum monthly payment could go down, with whatever debt remains forgiven after twenty years. Taxpayers will make up the revenue shortfall. That’s lovely for you if you qualify, but relatively few people will. Only around eight million of the roughly 36 million Americans who hold federal loans will probably benefit."

12. Student Debt Plan Compounds the Suffering, by Cindy Warner - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/rE4n5H - "Obama’s new plan for student loan repayment fails to address the problem of the financial industry's failure to disclose how a for-profit lender and servicer operates with its Draconian fees and penalties under the auspices of “financial aid,” or what students perceive as assistance. The financial industry failed to disclose that student loans come with no consumer protections and will remain that way for life. They are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, and if unpaid, the balance due will continue to escalate forever."

13. Intellectual Curiosity Predicts Academic Success, Study Finds - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/intellectual-curiosity-predicts-academic-success-study-finds/37502 - "Intellectual curiosity is a strong predictor of future academic performance, says an article in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. That conclusion was based on a meta-analysis of 200 previous studies of students who rated their own intellectual curiosity, among other factors. Intellectual curiosity has as large an effect on academic performance as conscientiousness, though not as much as intelligence, the article says."

14. How to Calculate the Real Cost of College, by Kayla Webley - http://ti.me/sNjxWk via @TIMEMoneyland - "The calculators, which are mandated by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, come up with net prices for individuals by taking the estimated costs — including tuition, fees, housing, books, transportation and other expenses — and subtracting the estimated aid a particular student is likely to receive, based on financial need and academic achievement. This aid comes in the form of scholarships from the school and grants (i.e., free money) from the federal government. After the net price is predicted, the calculators go a step further and detail the savings that could come from utilizing government-backed loans, which have low, fixed interest rates, and participating in a school’s work-study program."

15. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories on college access and success via @rottenbornj ▸ http://paper.li/rottenbornj#

353. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Obama to offer help for students buried in debt, by Jennifer Liberto - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/25/news/economy/Obama_student_loan/ via CNNMoney.com - "One of the proposals would push up the start date for more favorable terms on a special loan repayment program based on income, said White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes. Another measure would encourage graduates with two or more different kinds of federal loans to consolidate them and get a small break on interest rates. . . . Average student loan debt for the graduating class of 2009 at four-year nonprofit colleges was $24,000, including all private and federal loans, according to the Institute for College Access & Success."

2. See how much debt college will really put you in, by Blake Ellis - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/pf/college_financial_aid/ via @CNNMoney - "Figuring out how much college is going to cost you is about to get much easier.At least that's what the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education are hoping to do with a one-page "financial aid shopping sheet." The sheet will clearly break down the amount of aid a student will qualify for at a particular college, as well as how much debt they will end up with once they graduate."

3. College costs climb, yet again, by Kim Clark - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/pf/college/college_tuition_cost/ via @CNNMoney - "The sticker price of studying and living on campus at the average public university rose 5.4% for in-state students, or about $1,100, to $21,447 this fall, the College Board estimated. . . . The sticker price of living and studying for a year at a typical private college rose 4.3% to $42,224 this year."

4. Tuition and fees rise more than 8% at U.S. public colleges, by Mary Beth Marklein – http://usat.ly/tL8dPk via @USATODAY - "That increase is more than double the inflation rate of 3.6% between July 2010 and July 2011. Family earnings dropped across all income levels. And state funding per student declined by 4% in 2010, the latest year available, and 23% over the past decade, the report says."

5. Obama proposes changes to student loan programs, by Libby A. Nelson Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vkz5l3 via AddThis - "The majority of borrowers affected will be students who borrowed money under both the Federal Family Education Loan Program, when banks issued federal student loans and collected government subsidies, and the Direct Loan Program, under which the federal government lends money directly to students.The government began originating all loans through direct lending in 2010, when a provision to eliminate bank-based student lending was included in the administration’s health care overhaul. But many students who were enrolled at the time of the change have loans in both programs, meaning they make two payments."

6. Reports find student aid shift from states to federal government, by Kevin Kiley Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tkwJXL via @AddThis - "Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board and co-author of the reports, said the federal government is stepping in to fill a financial void created by states' decreased ability and willingness to fund public colleges and universities. “In a way, the burden of paying for higher education is shifting from the states to the federal government,” she said."

7. NCAA data show more athletes graduating from college, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tHDuCL via @AddThis - "The two sports of greatest concern are also the ones that bring in the most money. While the football and men’s basketball graduation success rates this year either rose slightly or stayed steady, the rates are still significantly lower than the overall NCAA average of 82 percent. Male basketball players are graduating at a rate two points higher this year, at 68 percent, while the football GSR dropped 0.6 points to 68.6 percent."

8. Solving the Nation's Dropout Crisis, by Russell W. Rumberger, Education Week - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/26/09rumberger_ep.h31.html - "Past efforts to solve the nation’s dropout crisis have largely been unsuccessful. Government agencies and private foundations have collectively invested billions of dollars in dropout-prevention programs, comprehensive school reform models, and new charter schools. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone invested more than $2 billion in small high schools, yet research has identified few effective models. In a 2008 review of 22 dropout-prevention programs, the federal government’s What Works Clearinghouse did not find a single program proven to raise high school graduation rates, which is stunning."

9. Hechinger Report Companies, nonprofits making millions off teacher effectiveness push, by Sarah Garland: http://hechingerreport.org/content/companies-nonprofits-making-millions-off-teacher-effectiveness-push_6582/#.TqgVLnjBHSY.twitter via AddThis - "New education reforms often translate into big money for private groups. Following the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, states paid millions of dollars annually to companies to develop and administer the standardized tests required under the law. Companies also cashed in on a provision mandating tutoring for students at struggling schools. . . . In Florida, the state paid Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a for-profit textbook publisher, $4.8 million to develop classroom observation methods and nearly $4 million to the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit, to create a value-added model for grading teachers based on student test scores, according to state officials."

10. Irish Student-Athletes Again Rank Number One In 2011 NCAA Graduation Success Rates - UND.COM - Univ - http://www.und.com/genrel/102511aaa.html

11. Post Your Questions on the New Student Loan Developments, by Ron Lieber: http://nyti.ms/rGFakB - "On Wednesday, President Obama plans to announce a number of changes in the federal student loan program. The initiatives will allow people to consolidate federal loans in new ways and also make the repayment program that is based on borrowers’ incomes more generous. The White House has outlined some of the changes on its Web site. What questions do you have about how all of this will work?"

12. Counseling Parents, With Some Help From a New Calculator, by Beckie Supiano -http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/counseling-parents-with-some-help-from-a-new-calculator/29091 - "When prospective students visit campus, Mr. Gudvangen has found that most of the questions about paying the bill come from parents, since they’re the ones who understand the family’s financial position. “This is an odd time in families’ lives,” he says. “At some point, students probably need to know these things, but they probably don’t as high-school seniors.”

13. Rise in Sticker Price at Public Colleges Outpaces That at Private Colleges for 5th Year in a Row, by Beckie Supiano - http://chronicle.com/article/Rise-in-Sticker-Price-at/129532/ - "For the fifth year in a row, the percentage increase in average published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges was higher than it was at private ones, according to the report, "Trends in College Pricing 2011." The report, released on Wednesday, examines annual changes in colleges' sticker prices, as well as the net prices students pay after grant aid and tax benefits are considered. A companion report, "Trends in Student Aid 2011," looks at the money that helps students meet those growing prices. (The pricing report looks at data through this academic year, while the student-aid report has information through 2010-11.)"

14. Institutions Charging More Than $50K for Tuition, Fees, Room, and Board -http://chronicle.com/article/Sortable-Table-Institutions/129527/ - "The 50K club is getting crowded: 123 institutions now charge $50,000 or more for tuition, fees, room, and board, according to data released by the College Board. That's up from last year, when 100 colleges and universities charged that much.Here are the institutions charging $50,000 or more:"

15. College Prices Up as States Slash Budgets, by Justin Pope - http://ti.me/uvSV9C via Time.com - "The states cut budgets, the price goes up, and the (federal) money goes to that," said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "For 25 years we've been putting more and more money into financial aid, and tuition keeps going up. We're on a national treadmill."

16. Ravitch: ditch NCLB, not tinker with it -http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-congress-should-ditch-nclb-not-tinker-with-it/2011/10/25/gIQAtgkmHM_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost -

"The federal government does not know how to reform schools. Period. Congress doesn’t, and the U.S. Department of Education doesn’t. The fundamental role of the federal government should be to advance equality of educational opportunity. That’s a tall order. Congress should revive the commitments made in 1965, when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed: To use federal resources on behalf of the neediest students; to protect the civil rights of students; to conduct research about education; to report on the condition and progress of American education."

334. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. 7 arrested in alleged SAT cheating scam, by Brad Lendon – This Just In - http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/7-arrested-in-alleged-sat-cheating-scam/ via @cnn -"Prosecutors allege Eshaghoff impersonated six Great Neck North High students between 2010 and 2011, charging between $1,500 and $2,500 to take the SAT test for them. Eshaghoff would take the test at schools other than Great Neck, where proctors would not be familiar with the students' identity, and present fake, unofficial identification, prosecutors say."

2. More financial help for NCAA athletes on the way, by Steve Wieberg – http://usat.ly/nHjyfJ via USAToday - "A committee weighing a number of potential changes is expected to recommend that the value of individual scholarships be raised by as much as $2,000 in the top-tier Division I, moving them closer to covering the athletes' full cost of attending school. Full grants currently cover only room, board, books and tuition. The NCAA's Division I board of directors would act on the proposal when it meets Oct. 26 and 27 in Indianapolis."

3. YSU, faculty reach deal, by Virginia Shank - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/qvYc6Y via @AddThis - "The two sides issued the joint statement after meeting Wednesday morning that explains they resolved the remaining provisions in the proposed contract. Union leaders said the proposal is a revision of the "best and final" offer administrators made last month that the faculty ultimately rejected. YSU-OEA and the YSU Board of Trustees are planning to review and vote on ratification of the tentative agreement early next week. They said details of the agreement would not be released until after the votes."

4. At Seton Hall, Sharp Cuts in Tuition for Those With Good Grades and SATs, by Jacques Steinberg: http://nyti.ms/qtODVZ - "How would one qualify for this discount, which Mr. Perez-Pena describes as equal to about two-thirds of this year’s $31,440 tuition? (Room, board and other fees add about $13,000, for a total annual bill of nearly $42,000.) Writes Mr. Perez-Pena:Students must graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes and have a combined score of at least 1,200 on their math and reading SATs — but no less than 550 on each — or an ACT score of 27. Mr. Perez-Pena says that the experts on admissions and financial aid whom he consulted “knew of no other college providing such a blanket discount for top-flight students.”

5. Going Off on Online Rankings, by Paul Fain - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qkJb76 via @AddThis - "The publication is analyzing six types of online academic programs for the new rankings: baccalaureate degree programs and master’s degrees in business, computer information technology, education, engineering and nursing. Both for-profits and nonprofits with substantial online offerings, like UMassOnline and the University of Maryland University College, were asked to participate. (To be eligible, programs need to have coursework that is collectively at least 80 percent online, according to a web presentation by U.S. News officials.)"

6. Dump the Slump, by Allie Grasgreen - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qMGfV2 via @AddThis - “The sophomore year is a time of transition, where students sometimes do feel like they’re in a slump. They’re not yet necessarily deeply on their track toward whatever their path is, but they’re no longer in that special moment of being the first-year class whom everybody dotes on,” said Stephen Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education at Duke."

7. Academic Performance and the BCS, by John V. Lombardi, Elizabeth D. Capaldi, and Craig W. Abbey - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/o2zBdW - "It will come as no real surprise to those who watch our academic landscape to discover that the Big 10 leads the field with an academic distinction index of 55, followed closely by the Pac-12 with 48. The ACC falls some distance behind with an index of 28.5 and the SEC a significant distance away at 14, followed closely by the Big-Twelve and the Big East at 12. As a reference, we also constructed an index for the Ivy League, to put all this into perspective. This premier academic conference would fall into second place, after the Big-10 and before the Pac-12."

8. The Man Behind the Controversial College Rankings, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/the-man-behind-the-controversial-college-rankings/6761/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "What you probably don’t know, however, is who is responsible for the rankings’ controversial methodology. The person behind the college rankings is Robert Morse, who is US News’ director of data research. At the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling last week in New Orleans, I interviewed Morse about his rankings baby. Here’s what he had to say."

9. Politics K-12: Roadmap to Winning an NCLB Waiver, by Michele McNeil - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/09/_overall_instructions_a_plan.html via @educationweek - "Then, the peer reviewers will drill down and focus on the three main commitments states have to make to get more freedom under NCLB. On adopting college and career ready standards: Judges will ask: Is there a plan to provide professional development to teachers and principals? . . . On adopting guidelines to improve teacher and principal effectiveness: Is student growth a significant enough part of the new evaluation system to differentiate among teachers who have made "significantly different contributions" (emphasis added) to student growth or closing achievement gaps?"

10. Politics K-12: Obama to Nation's Students: Aim for College, and Innovate, by Alyson Klein - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/09/obama_to_nations_students_aim.html via @educationweek - "This year's remarks were pretty innocuous. They focused on urging students to push themselves academically and set high goals, namely pursuing education or postsecondary training after high school, and finishing those studies. "If that means college for you, just getting into college isn't enough," Obama said. "You've got to graduate. ... Our country used to have the world's highest proportion of of young people with a college degree. We now rank 16th. That's not good enough. We need your generation to bring us back to the top."

11. Hispanic Children in Poverty Exceed Whites, Study Finds, by Sabrina Tavernise - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/us/hispanic-children-in-poverty-surpass-whites-study-finds.html?src=rechp - "While the number of Hispanic children in poverty is the highest ever, the poverty rate — 35 percent in 2010 — is well under its 1994 peak of 41 percent. Nor do Hispanics have the largest share in poverty of all racial and ethnic groups. In 2010, 39.1 percent of black children — 4.3 million — lived in poverty, as did 12.4 percent of white children. . . . And Hispanic children in poverty are more likely to live in married couple families than either non-Hispanic whites or African-Americans, according to the report, a pattern that can help cushion an economic fall. Forty-six percent of Hispanic children lived in married couple families in 2010, compared with 41 percent of whites and 16 percent of African-Americans."

12. Coming Together to Dismantle Education Reform, by Andrew J. Rotherham - http://ti.me/mPIiso via @TIME - "As evidence of the severe disconnect between the state's high standards on paper and lax enforcement in practice, consider that 98% of schools in Virginia — a state system I know well, since I served as a member of its board of education for four years — are fully accredited under the state's rules. But just 22% of the Hispanic students and 14% of the African-American students who attend these schools are reading at the "proficient" level on the National Assessment of Education Progress by eighth grade. Hard to square that with a 98% success rate."

277. Summer College News

Here are some links to today's stories
about college access and success.
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily on http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. Dozens of Atlanta educators falsified tests, state report confirms #cnn - http://t.co/En0SGWx - "I think the overall conclusion was that testing and results and targets being reached became more important than actual learning for children," Deal said. "And when reaching targets became the goal, it was a goal that was pursued with no excuses."

3. NCAA could see 'fundamental changes' in way it operates, by Steve Wieberg - http://usat.ly/q0MqFN via @USATODAY - "The system is bent. If not broken."There's a lot of motive to make some fundamental changes . . . more sweeping changes than we've probably seen in the past," Big 12 Conference commissioner Dan Beebe says."

4. Roundup: Michigan Admissions, Student Loans and Prospects for Film Graduates, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/qREYEI - "Summer is typically a slow season on the admissions news (and news-you-can-use) front. But several articles over the holiday weekend caught our eye, and we wanted to bring them to the attention of those readers — especially future applicants and their families — who may have missed them."

5. Teacher Beat: UPDATED: NEA Delegates Take Swipe at Teach For America, by Stephen Sawchuk - http://t.co/kavQ4kb via @educationweek - "In the union's strongest stance yet against the popular Teach For America alternative-certification program, National Education Association delegates approved an item that accuses TFA of taking jobs from other teachers in locales with job shortages."

6. District Dossier: State Investigation Reveals Widespread Cheating in Atlanta Schools, by Christina Samuels - http://t.co/SmaUtWO - "Beverly L. Hall, the former superintendent of Atlanta schools, knew about cheating allegations on state standardized tests and either ignored or tried to hide them, the Associated Press reported after obtaining a copy of an 800-page state investigation report.
Earlier today, Gov. Nathan Deal's office released a synopsis of the report's findings, which noted that investigators found evidence of cheating at close to 80 percent of the Atlanta schools where they examined the 2009 administration of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, or CRCT. Teachers and principals at more than four dozen schools are accused of helping students, or changing the answers once students handed in their test sheet."

7. Running a Race Against Ourselves, by Jonathan Plucker & David Rutkowski - http://t.co/qXtKqhE via @educationweek - "As would be expected, many of these reforms have been touted as the silver bullets that will result in major improvements in American education. However, the dirty little secret among researchers is that these reforms will almost certainly have little to no effect on the performance of most students.Volumes of nonpartisan research over the past 20 years suggest that most reforms (e.g., vouchers, charters, merit pay) have marginal effects on student achievement."

8. Tight Budgets Whittle Away School Days, by Sam Dillon - http://nyti.ms/jChMUm - "For two decades, advocates have been working to modernize the nation’s traditional 180-day school calendar, saying that the languid summers evoked in “To Kill a Mockingbird” have a pernicious underside: each fall, many students — especially those who are poor — return to school having forgotten much of what they learned the previous year. The Obama administration picked up the mantra: at his 2009 confirmation hearing, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared, “Our school day is too short, our school week is too short, our school year is too short,” but its efforts in this realm have not been as successful as other initiatives."

9. Top 10 YouTube Videos Posted by Colleges, and What They Mean, by Rachel Wiseman - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/top-10-youtube-videos-posted-by-colleges-and-what-they-mean/32070 - "More than 400 colleges and universities have set up channels on YouTube as part of the YouTube EDU section of the popular video site, but university officials admit they are still experimenting with the service and learning what types of videos resonate with off-campus audiences.With data provided by YouTube, The Chronicle has determined the 10 most popular videos on YouTube EDU of the 2010-11 academic year (from June 2010 to June 2011)."

10. The 24 Most and Least Affordable Public Colleges, by Kayla Webley - http://moneyland.time.com/2011/07/06/the-24-most-and-least-affordable-public-colleges/ - "Last week, the U.S. Department of Education released a new web tool that lets users calculate the costs of getting a college degree. While much has been made of the highest and lowest tuition rates, you can also use the tool to calculate the “real” cost for an academic year, often called the net price. That includes the cost of attendance (tuition, required fees, books, supplies, average room and board and other expenses) minus grant and scholarship aid. Using the data, TIME Moneyland assembled a list of 24 of the most and least affordable U.S. public colleges."

11. As would-be students ‘melt,’ colleges try to keep cool, by Wayne Washington - TheState.com: http://bit.ly/pecBEU - "Based on her 32 years in higher education, Perry Wilson, director of admissions at Florence’s Francis Marion University, said schools face a melt percentage of about 10 percent — that is, one in 10 students tell a college or university they plan [to enter] in the fall but end up not enrolling."

213.Unstack the Odds--Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 4

Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

6. Black Males: A Crisis, Pt 4

“He says the biggest revelation he had reading his own autobiography came in the parts about his father, who abandoned the family when Jay was 11. ‘It was still wrong, at the end of the day, that he left.’ Jay says, ‘but he did stick around at a time when it wasn’t cool or popular—he married my mom at a time when guys were just leaving, and you’d never even meet your dad. So it made me ease up a little bit in how I felt about him.”--Mark Binelli, “King of America: From Coachella to the White House, How Jay-Z Runs the Game,” Rolling Stone, June 24, 2010, p. 47.

Dakarai Aarons also commented on the release of the report A Call for Change, which examined data from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). As he stated: “The council's report suggests that the underperformance of black male youths is nothing short of a national emergency, and it calls for the convening of a White House conference.”

Aarons quotes Michael Casserly from an interview as saying, "This is not just an education issue, and it is not just an urban issue. It is a broader national issue that is going to require sustained and coordinated effort on the part of a lot of people.” (Dakarai Aarons, “Black Male Achievement in a 'State of Crisis,' Study Says,” Education Week, November 9, 2010.) http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2010/11/black_male_achievement_paints.html
Chauntel Riser, coordinator of the African-American Resource Center at California State University Fullerton (CSUF), put it this way: “So it’s not that they don’t want to, they just don’t know how to graduate . . . .” According to Christina Lunceford, assistant director of the Center for Research on Education Access and Leadership at CSUF, “We are in a crisis across the country especially with African-American males. There are not a lot of African-American males going to college and even fewer are graduating.” (Soyoung Kim, “Achievement Gap Persists in African-American Graduation Rates,” Neon Tommy, March 5, 2011.) http://m.neontommy.com/news/2011/03/achievement-gap-persists-african-american-graduation-rates

Regarding the graduation gap involving Black male college athletes, Lynn O’Shaughnessy offered a posting on the graduation rates of men’s basketball teams competing in the 2011 NCAA Tournament. She drew statistics from the annual report issued by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida and commented as follows: “The gap between white and African American players, however, grew by four percentage point[s] to 32%. Ninety one percent of white basketball players graduate, but only 59% of African-American basketball players graduate. Obviously, that’s unacceptable.” (Lynn O’Shaughnessy, “2011 March Madness: Best and Worst Graduation Rates,” The College Solution: CBS Moneywatch, March 15, 2011.) http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/2011-march-madness-best-and-worst-graduation-rates/4787/?tag=col1;blog-river

By contrast, among participants on teams in the 2011 Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, the graduation gap was much smaller between the races, as “. . . 92 percent of white players graduate, compared to 84 percent of black players, or a gap of just 8 percent.” (“Women’s NCAA Teams Outdo Men in Classroom,” The Huffington Post: College, March 16, 2011.) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/15/womens-ncaa-teams-outdo-m_n_836240.html

186. MVCAP fyi

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1. Student killed in shooting near Ohio university - http://bit.ly/gQdh1S #cnn

"Hughes said the shooting is a surprise. "It's sad because young people here are trying to turn around a lot of things," he said. "That campus is a bright shining star."

2. Tragedy at a Party, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fu8HZF

‎"A statement from Youngstown State said that university police believe that there is no threat to the campus, but that security there has been heightened as a precaution. Cynthia E. Anderson, president of the university, went to the local hospital where shooting victims were treated to talk with students and their families. In a statement, she said that the "tragic act of violence" made Sunday "a sad day for the YSU family."

3. Bad Apples or More? by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/g3gqjx

"The review finds that 53 of the 120 universities in the NCAA’s top competitive level, the Football Bowl Subdivision, were found by the NCAA's Division I Committee on Infractions to have committed major rules violations from 2001 to 2010. That number appears to have held largely constant from the previous two decades, but the 2000s show that the number of colleges that committed serious violations of the association’s academic rules nearly doubled, to 15 from 8 in the 1990s."

4. Toughen NCAA Academic Rules, by Gerald S. Gurney - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gQnAHI

‎"A more critical analysis suggests that the recent patterns of serious institutional involvement in academic fraud may be related to predictable consequences of changes in the 2003 NCAA initial eligibility legislation that certify woefully underprepared athletes as qualified to compete in the college classroom."

5. New Data Show Students at For-Profit Colleges Twice As Likely To Default On Loans - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/for-profit-students-default-loans-new-data_n_818507.html?ir=College

"In addition, students taking out loans at for-profit schools were responsible for nearly half of all federal student loan defaults within the three-year timeframe, even though students enrolled at such institutions made up less than 15 percent of college students nationwide."

6. What to Expect From the Revised AP U.S. History Program, by Erik Robelen: http://t.co/qaMEpuR

"Unlike the current AP U.S. history course, the new curriculum framework lays out clear expectations for what students need to understand about different periods in American history," he writes. "These understandings are written at a high conceptual level in order to allow teachers to illustrate them with appropriate examples of historical actors and events drawn from each period."

7. A Letter to My President—The One I Voted for... by Paul Karrer: http://t.co/7mGX0dN via @educationweek

"It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?"

8. Best college essay ever? by Valerie Strauss - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/best-college-essay-ever.html

‎"After receiving it again recently, I found the the author, a writer named Hugh Gallagher, to find out the real history of the piece. Gallagher told me that he wrote the essay when he was 17 for a high school writing contest. He won (and the essay was published in Harper's Magazine). He did then use the essay as part of his applications when he applied to five colleges about two decades ago. He attended New York Univ. . . ."

9. Financial Aid Fundamentals: File the FAFSA Now! -

http://www.top-colleges.com/blog/2011/02/05/financial-aid-fundamentals-file-your-fafsa-now/

‎"That means it is critically important for students – those that are college bound or already enrolled in degree programs – to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as soon as possible. Almost all forms of financial aid – including scholarships, grants and student loans – use the FAFSA as the foundation for award decisions."

10. College search would end with Harvard’s ‘yes,’ by Richard O. Jones - http://t.co/EHUnnOk via @oxfordpress

"Although he’s applied to 17 colleges — large and small, near and far — if Badin High School senior Raymond Dong gets the acceptance letter he most wants, he’ll be heading to Harvard next fall."

11. Are football stars really heroes, or just famous? by Sharon Jayson -USATODAY.com http://t.co/MCFwnMm

"But are the players on the field really heroes, or just celebrities?
Those who study heroism say there is a tendency to confuse it with fame or celebrity worship, which has sparked some researchers to take a closer look at just what makes a hero in the 21st century."

12. Footballer: 'Are you OK with destroying a kid's brain for this game?' by Stephanie Smith - http://bit.ly/fakTTc #cnn

‎"Can you ever make football so that no one gets hurt? No. People are going to get hurt," said Nowinski, president of the Sports Legacy Institute. "But you can eliminate certain drills, you modify certain drills, minimize certain drills...eliminate dumb things like 'bull in the ring.'"

13. To Close Gaps, Schools Focus on Black Boys, by Winnie Hu - http://nyti.ms/gh0mHj

“I think this is a form of racial profiling in the public school system,” said the coalition’s executive director, Michael Meyers. “What they’re doing here, under the guise of helping more boys, is they’re singling them out and making them feel inferior or different simply because of their race and gender.”

14. New NAEP Science Scores Reveal Significant Achievement Gaps, by Jasmine Harley - http://www.civilrights.org/archives/2011/02/1140-naep.html

"Black 4th-graders and 8th-graders scored on average 36 pts lower than their White counterparts and Black 12th-graders scored on average 34 pts lower than their White counterparts; Hispanic 4th-graders scored on average 32 pts lower than their White counterparts. The gap decreases to 30 pts in 8th grade and to 25 pts in 12th grade. . . ."

15. Why the stakes are so much higher now, by Audrey Kahane - NorthJersey.com http://t.co/CNn1zIg via @NorthJerseybrk

"The college admission process wasn't nearly as anxiety-producing 30 years ago. As I often tell parents, we probably wouldn't be admitted if we had to apply to our alma maters today. Parents have heard enough stories from friends and relatives whose high-achieving children have been turned down by schools that would have been considered "safe" 30 years ago to know that this is true, but they still don't understand why things are so different now."

16. What Is The Achievement Gap? Education Equality Project: http://t.co/64ElJ3h

"The huge difference in academic performance between students from different economic circumstances and racial/ethnic backgrounds is what we call the achievement gap."

17. Educators missed lesson on segregation, by Tony Norman - http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11035/1122872-153.stm

"At McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, 11th-grade black students were placed in separate homerooms with black teachers for six minutes a day, starting in December. The theory was that black students are more likely to take education seriously if they have a mentor who shares their racial background."

18. The Harvard Effect, by Timothy Noah - http://www.slate.com/id/2283744/

"At the end of 2007, Harvard announced that it would limit tuition to no more than 10% of family income for families earning up to $180,000. (It also eliminated all loans, following a trail blazed by Princeton, and stopped including home equity in its calculations of family wealth.) Yale saw and raised to $200,000, and other wealthy colleges weighed in with variations."

19. 8 Big Changes to College Admissions in 2010 and 2011, by Kim Clark - US News and World Report: http://t.co/uVIryt4

"Interviews with admissions officers at some of the nation's most popular colleges reveal recent and important shifts in the weighting of traditional admission factors. . . . College officials outline 8 major changes to their admissions practices that will affect applicants from now on:"

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170. MVCAP fyi

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1. Students' rights weighed as colleges try to assess threats, by Mary Beth Marklein - http://usat.ly/fwBHh2 - RT @USATODAY

‎"Two states — Virginia and Illinois — now legally require such teams and 80% of colleges nationwide have started them since the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech that left 32 people dead. . . . Since April 2007, news reports show that at least 67 people have been killed and 69 others injured in attacks by U.S. college students."

2. High School Juniors, Start Your Engines, by Lee A. Culbertson - http://nyti.ms/hkyUJb

"Juniors are already itching and beginning to ask, “What should I be doing now?” First, breathe. Remember, “College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won” (Frank Sachs, the Blake School). When you make a list of colleges that you’d like to explore, consider investigating what is most important to you, and then begin to draft your preliminary list."

3. Part 3: Answers to Readers' Questions on Financial Aid, by Mark Kantrowitz - http://nyti.ms/fBS7IH

‎"Money in retirement plans, the family home and small businesses owned and controlled by the family have no impact on federal aid. As a result, parent assets affect the EFC of less than 4% of dependent students. You should, however, save money in the parent’s name, not the child’s. Child assets have a much more severe impact on the EFC."

4. College Is Still Worth It, by Anthony Carnevale - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gWNYhv

"The most persuasive evidence that the BLS numbers are wrong are earnings data, which show that employers across the country pay a "wage premium" to college graduates, even in occupations that BLS does not consider "college" jobs. This simply means that businesses pay more money to workers with degrees than to those without because employers believe that postsecondary educated workers are more valuable."

5. Second GOALS study emphasizes coach influence, by Gary Brown - http://t.co/4Q8FYQ2 - Latest News - NCAA.org

"Athletics participation was the most-often reported reason for choosing a college (at least 75 percent of the time in all sport cohorts). Academics generally was a close second, followed by the institution’s proximity to home."

6. Five Reasons to Apply for Financial Aid, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/2cGUgxs

‎"Parents grumble about applying for financial aid, but there are excellent reasons why most families should take the time to fill out the cumbersome financial aid applications. If you are on the fence about filling out the FAFSA, here are five reasons to apply for financial aid."

7. NCAA Rejects Plan to Block Early Scholarships - http://t.co/245Bnxi via @educationweek

"The NCAA squashed a proposal Thursday that would have stopped college coaches from offering scholarships to students as young as middle-schoolers. . . . The legislative council also voted down tougher academic restrictions for incoming basketball players at the NCAA's annual convention."

8. High Achievers Scarce in Math, Science in U.S., by Erik W. Robelen - http://t.co/XKGAuOb via @educationweek

"Only about 10 percent of U.S. students scored in the two highest achievement categories in math on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, well short of the figures for a host of other nations, from South Korea and Japan to France, Germany, and New Zealand

. . . . In science, the U.S. position was more favorable, but not dramatically so."

9. Researcher Finds Easy Solution for Test Anxiety - http://t.co/APRTEDK via @educationweek

‎"The report in Friday's edition of the journal Science says students who spend 10 minutes before an exam writing about their thoughts and feelings can free up brainpower previously occupied by testing worries and do their best work."

10. Facing New Cuts, California's Colleges Are Shrinking Their Enrollments, by Josh Keller - http://chronicle.com/article/Facing-New-Cuts-Californias/125945/

"I'll tell students in my presentations that if you want to leave the state, good for you," Ms. Ponce says. "We have too many people in the state of California. We need someone to leave right now."Many of the students are in denial, she adds. Their parents don't understand how the landscape has shifted. "I will break out the numbers, and they kind of look at me in complete confusion," she says. "They have no idea."

11. A Lesson on Urban Identity, by Matthew Amaral - http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/105853.html

“Can you be Ghetto and successful?” I tell them they can’t talk about drug-dealers, rappers, athletes, or other entertainers--we’re talking about real careers. . . . This is something that will really come into focus on a college campus when a majority of the students are NOT like them."

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167. MVCAP fyi

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1. Auburn football team champs on field but not in graduation rates - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/sports/auburn-football-team-champs-on.html

"According to the Academic Progress Rate, a four-year assessment by the NCAA of the movement toward graduation for a team’s players, Auburn has dropped from No. 4 to No. 85 among the 120 major college football programs."

2. 'Sad Day For California,' by Jack Stripling - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/eWdkpb

"In an effort to tackle an estimated $28 billion budget shortfall, the newly elected governor would strip $1.4 billion from public higher education institutions. The reductions would include $500 million each in cuts for the University of California and California State University. Additionally, $400 million would be carved from the budgets of the California Community Colleges."

3. Young People Say Sex, Paychecks Come In Second To Self-Esteem: http://bit.ly/hauxJ4

‎"One of the items they were asked about was self-esteem building experiences, such as receiving a good grade or receiving a compliment. “We found that self-esteem trumped all other rewards in the minds of these college students,” Bushman said."

4. 7 Prestigious Undergrad Scholarships, by Michelle Showalter - http://t.co/lJD4xMQ - The Scholarship Coach (usnews.com)

‎"Here are seven of the more well-known and lucrative scholarships available to high school students:"

5. 5 Reasons Not to Get a Law Degree, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/W4EqIKJ

"For most young grads, the answer is a resounding no. At least that’s the conclusion you could easily draw from a lengthy story in The New York Times on Sunday. The article, Is Law School a Losing Game?, provided a devastating look at how law schools market themselves and manipulate their employment statistics to make their law degrees look like a great investment."

6. As Mental Troubles Arise, Limited Options for Institutions, by Benedict Carey - http://nyti.ms/fC3lXA

“It wasn’t a case of ‘Gee, no one saw this coming,’ ” Dr. Borum said. “People saw it. But the question then was what do you do about it? Who do you call? The whole thing speaks to the need for some coordinated way to detect such threats.”

7. NCAA Proposal Would Give Companies More Latitude to Use Athletes' Images in Ads, by Libby Sander - http://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Proposal-Would-Give/125914/

"Existing rules generally bar companies from using an athlete's name, image, or "likeness" in advertisements, promotions, or other ventures. The proposed measure would allow corporate sponsors to feature game clips of current athletes in their TV ads, for instance, as long as the ads include the name of the athlete's institution."

8. Expert Predicts a Deluge of Tablet Computers on Campus, by Josh Fischman - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/walt-mossberg-says-colleges-will-deal-with-a-deluge-of-tablets/28889

"And tablets will matter in higher education, Mr. Mossberg said, because students will bring them to campus, and colleges and—in particular—publishers will need to meet their needs. “The actual users, like students and faculty, will barge in,” he said."

9. U. of Arizona junior Daniel Hernandez helped Rep. Giffords Moments After Shooting - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2011/01/u_of_arizona_junior_helped_rep.html

"Then he saw that Giffords (D-Ariz.) had a "severe gunshot wound to the head" and worked to reposition her body so she could breath without the risk of inhaling blood, Hernandez told the Wildcat. He applied pressure to stop her blood loss and gave others instructions. "She was my main focus so I stayed with her and tried to help her as much as possible," Hernandez, 20, told the campus newspaper."

10. The Education Reform Book Is Dead, by Jay P. Greene - http://educationnext.org/the-education-reform-book-is-dead/

"The problem is that education reform thinking is being shaped less and less by books. As we are seeing in other policy areas, blogs, articles, and other new media are displacing books as the primary means by which intellectual policy movements are formed and sustained."

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166. MVCAP fyi

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1. Quarterback Andrew Luck to Stay at Stanford, by Pete Thamel - http://nyti.ms/flZpE1

"True to his low-key nature, and according to the wishes of his family, Andrew Luck released a one-sentence statement. “I am committed to earning my degree in architectural design from Stanford University and am on track to accomplish this at the completion of the spring quarter of 2012,” he said."

2. Rethinking Advanced Placement, by Christopher Drew - http://nyti.ms/f31z6y

"As A.P. has proliferated, spreading to more than 30 subjects with 1.8 million students taking 3.2 million tests, . . . many of the courses, particularly in the sciences and history, have also been criticized for overwhelming students with facts to memorize and then rushing through important topics."

3. Certificate Programs Proliferate, by Motoko Rich - http://nyti.ms/eFRPfw

"In an economy that increasingly rewards specialization, more and more institutions — from the ones that advertise on late-night cable to the most elite of universities — are offering these programs, typically a package of five or six courses, for credit or not, taken over three to 18 months. Some cost a few thousand dollars, others tens of thousands.

Are they worth the paper they’re printed on?
Not always. "

4. The almighty essay is a tough assignment, by Trip Gabriel - http://nyti.ms/dX7pNw

"What if, like most 17-year-olds, a high school senior sounds wooden or pretentious or thunderously trite when trying to express himself in the first person? Prose in which an author’s voice emerges through layers of perfectly correct sentences is the hardest kind of writing there is. Plenty of professional authors can’t manage it. How reasonable is it to expect of teenagers?"

5. Does Helping Out Help You? by Pamela Paul - http://nyti.ms/hu8ekS

"The admissions teams distinguished among the type and duration of service seen on college applications. Seventy percent of them, it turns out, were more impressed by long-term local grunt work than a summer of volunteer work abroad."

6. College’s Value Added, by Amanda M. Fairbanks - http://nyti.ms/hFx5x3

"Since graduating, 60 percent have full-time jobs, nearly 36 percent have moved back home to live with either their parents or relatives and nearly one-tenth are carrying more than $60,000 worth of debt. Of those who have jobs, more than two-thirds were making less than $35,000 a year and 45 percent were earning $15,000 or less."

7. Students who found new ways to give back, by Katie Zezima, Abby Ellin, and Inyoung Kang - http://nyti.ms/gJhxhr

"He returned home to New Smyrna Beach, Fla., raised $10,000 from family and friends, found Web developers and began INeedaPencil.com, a Web site that offers free SAT prep, including lessons that use conversational language and sports analogies and full practice exams."

8. Colleges for students with learning disabilities, by Abby Goodnough - http://nyti.ms/eRq5PQ

"Ms. Nelson is paying most of her own way at Landmark, a two-year college exclusively for students with learning disabilities and A.D.H.D. She wants to graduate on time this spring, and with tuition and fees alone at $48,000 a year — more than any other college in the nation — she cannot give in to distraction."

9. Is college athletics a sweatshop? by Bob Greene - http://bit.ly/fWCB6C #cnn

"There are various and conflicting reports on exactly how much money college sports brings in. The NCAA, on its website, says: "Overall annual revenue for college athletics programs is estimated at around $10.6 billion."

10. D.C. tops rankings for USA's most literate cities, by Mary Beth Marklein - http://usat.ly/hcrUkX - RT @USATODAY

"The study identifies "worrisome trends" consistent with other national research, including declines in newspaper circulation and book-buying, along with sluggish growth in educational attainment. Increases in Internet usage and stable library patronage aren't offsetting those declines, it says."

11. Seeking Your Questions on Financial Aid, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/hBhOJd

"Now that most students applying to college for next fall’s freshman class have submitted their applications, they will soon turn to the question of paying for that education. Perhaps the most important form they will fill out will be the Free Application For Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa."

12. For-Profit College Grads Also Earn a Life of Debt, by John Hechinger- http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_03/b4211018017031.htm

"The bottom line: Students at for-profit colleges graduate with higher debt loads and loan default rates than those who attend conventional schools."

13. For Law School Graduates, Debts if Not Job Offers, by David Segal - http://nyti.ms/iixD2u

". . . J.D.’s face the grimmest job market in decades. Since 2008, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs at large firms have vanished, according to a Northwestern Law study. Associates have been laid off, partners nudged out the door and recruitment programs have been scaled back or eliminated."

14. Study Finds Family Connections Give Big Advantage in College Admissions, by Tamar Lewin - http://nyti.ms/fE2S11

". . . Applicants to a parent’s alma mater had, on average, 7 times the odds of admission of nonlegacy applicants. Those whose parents did graduate work there or who had a grandparent, sibling, uncle or aunt who attended the college were, by comparison, only twice as likely to be admitted."

15. Lifetime Chits Would Allow Athletes to Be Students, Too, by Bruce Smith - http://chronicle.com/article/Lifetime-Chits-Would-Allow/125863/

"An NCAA survey from a couple of years ago reported that football players devoted more than 40 hours a week to practicing, playing, and training. Only 20 hours could be mandatory (not including travel time and time rehabilitating from injury), but it's widely known that much more time running, weight training, and practicing informally is necessary to be successful. Playing college sports easily becomes the functional equivalent of a full-time job. But we also ask these young people—both in the revenue-generating sports and in the equally time-consuming "minor" sports—to be full-time college students."

16. Achievement gap slow to close, by Diana Lambert - http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/10/3311645/achievement-gap-slow-to-close.html

"In 2009 there was a gap of 27% points between fourth-grade white students and African American students, and a gap of 22% points between white and Latino students in math. There also was a 28% gap between white and African American fourth-graders in reading."

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165. MVCAP fyi

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1. NCAA football: All dollars, no sense, by Frank Deford - http://bit.ly/dZyc3A /via @SI_24Seven

"Why should any of this be surprising? College football is a billion dollar enterprise now, and everybody involved is making money -- sometimes millions -- except the players themselves."

2. Presidents Plot Push for Aid Changes, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hZqEzI

"A 2008 study by the Institute for College Access and Success found that four-year colleges were distributing $3.3 billion in institutional aid to one group of students in excess of those students' proven financial need, while first-year students at those same institutions had $2.4 billion in unmet need over and above their grants, subsidized loans and work study funds."

3. Athletes and Students Graduate Comparably, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/f4uleP

"Released Thursday by the NCAA, results from a representative, division-wide sample of 115 institutions show that 66 percent of athletes who enrolled as freshmen in 2003 graduated within six years. This is comparable to the 65 percent graduation rate for all students at the 444 Division III member institutions."

4. Verbal Commitments Challenged, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gaExv8

"Some coaches of high-profile sports teams occasionally make verbal scholarship offers to potential recruits as early as the eighth grade. For example, last February, a 13-year-old quarterback verbally committed to play football at the University of Southern California. The prospect would most likely not be able to enter college until 2015."

5. 6 Great College Resolutions for the New Year, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/1Z7EwRU

"Many parents focus on getting their teens into college rather than making sure that their children are well prepared to succeed in college. The latter is far more important."

6. Georgia Facing a Hard Choice on Free Tuition, by Kim Severson - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/us/07hope.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

"Part of it is the program’s popularity. A majority of freshmen in Georgia have grades good enough to qualify for Hope, which covers tuition, some books and fees — but not housing costs — at any Georgia university or technical school."

7. Do Legacy Preferences Count More Than Race? by Richard Kahlenberg - http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/do-legacy-preferences-count-more-than-race/28294

‎"How does the 45-percentage-point increase given to primary legacies compare with other preferences such as those for under-represented minorities? Hurwitz’s study doesn’t say. But Bowen and colleagues (using earlier data, from a smaller set of schools and controlling just for SAT scores) found that being an under-represented minority increased one’s chances by 27.7 percentage points."

8. Pittsburgh mentors, money fuel education, by Mary Beth Marklein - http://usat.ly/gv4iIb RT @USATODAY

"It centers on the Pittsburgh Promise, a 3-year-old scholarship — worth up to $40,000 over four years — for public school graduates. Students can use the scholarship at just about any college or trade school in the state. Their only requirements: attend class regularly and maintain a 2.5 grade point average."

9. A Tough Job Outlook, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/gIjYqu

"For those seeking jobs teaching English or foreign languages, the job market remains bleak -- but what passes for good news may be that the number of openings is flat this year, and isn't dropping further after dramatic declines in the previous two years."

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